A new project is bringing Android to Mac and PC for free

The idea of using Android in a traditional desktop sense isn't new.

Remix OS, as its name suggests, is a remix of the Android operating system. Google has teased us somewhat with Chrome OS, but it's not Android for real.

The developers of Remix OS have released two devices that ship with the software, a tablet and a mini desktop computer, and they've also made the software available to Chinese device makers such as Cube. It is created to run on majority of Intel and AMD desktops and laptops, and even on Mac devices. Well, from mid-January you'll be able to give it a new lease of life with Remix OS for PC, which will let you run a version of Android right there on a computer, gratis. Apps, by the way, can be run in individual windows or full screen and a version of Remix OS based on Android Marshmallow is in the pipeline.

With its modest system requirements - the Remix Mini runs on a 1.2GHz Allwinner processor - the OS can run a variety of aging hardware, and with Android's relatively small space footprint most users will be able to carry the OS around on a USB thumbtack. To put it simply, Remix OS delivers the same desktop interface that users have grown attached with ever since Microsoft's Windows operating system became the standard in personal computers.

David Ko, co-founder of Jide Technology, said: "Today's public release of Remix OS, based on Android-x86, is something that we've been working towards since we founded Jide Technology in 2014". Most people will not realize how big a deal this is, but it is just that.

According to reports, Jide Technology has partnered with Android-x86, a community project that aims to make Google's mobile operating system on any x86 device.